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The Letters of Phalaris to the Maltese THE LETTERS OF PHALARIS TO THE MALTESE By REV. J. BUSUTTIL IN 1427 Francesco Filelfo, the celebrated ltalian humanist, brought with him from Constantinople, where he had been living since 1419 acting as secretary to the Consul-general of the Venetians, among other Greek manuscripts covering the whole area of Greek literature, also one con­ taining the collection of the Letters of Ph alaris. l The 148 letters which make up this collection may be divided into two classes: one class comprising letters addressed to private citizens, the other those written to whole communities. Among the latter there are two addressed to the Melitaioi ('tOL~ M8AL'taLoL~ and the same people are referred to in a third letter sent to the inhabitants of Segesta ('to LO" 'Ey8O"'taLO'L ~ .2 These letters are known as the letters of Phalaris because their author claims to be the tyrant of the Sicilian city of Akragas, modern Girgenti. 3 Who was Phalaris, the tyrant of Akragas? Fewer names were more widely spread in antiquity than that of Ph alaris • Pindar, Aristotle, Polybius, Diodorus Siculus mention him. Cicero has many references to him scattered in his different works; while Propertius, Ovid, Silius Italicus and Claudian make allusions to hi s activities in their poetic writings. Very little, however, is really known of him. He became tyrant of Akragas within a remarkably short time after the foundation of the city. He was born perhaps on the Dorian island of Astypalaea near Cnidus, or perhaps at Akragas itself,4 the son of a certain Laodamas. Whilst most of the Siceliot tyrants, according to Aristotle, belong to that class who were damagogues prior to their being tyrants, Phalaris was one of those lCf. Tudeer, The Epistles 0/ Phalaris. Helsinki, 1931, p.1l4. 2Cf. R.Herscher, Epistolographi Graeci. Amsterdam 1965, pp.419-420 and pp. 432, 442. 3 ." I , ,1' A ~,S:: Cf. Herscher, Op.Clt. p.409: 8'){IJ ytxp u:an:ep ~v OLoa ~LV lll:U.UCh l.lCtVl:O~ {nov 'AaT:UTrJi)..a.LW. 'to y£vo~, 7".a:tpLOO~ fut80'1:8PllfJ-BvoG, 'tupavvov , .AxpccytxVl: Cvwv • 4 Cf. Letter to Likinus, Epistolographi Graeci. p.409; Freeman, Hist. of Sic ily Oxford 1891, Vol.1, p.64; E.H. Banbury, Dictionary of Greek and Roman Bio­ graphy and Mythology, Vol. III, p. 234-236, London 1849. 220 THE LETTERS OF PHALARIS TO THE MALTESE 221 who rose to power through offices of honour (Or. -tWV 't'l.!LWv) and Polyean informs us that he was the treasurer (6 't"8AwVTj" of the city.' Akragas (Latin Agrigentum, modern Girgenti) was founded by the neighbouring city of Gela in 580 B.C. 10 570 it was still without a wall and without a temple. Phalaris, as a leading man of the city, was en­ trusted with the building of the temple of Zeus Polieus on the height (Modem San Gerlando), and with the 200 talents at his disposal he not only laid in a store of wood, stones, and, iron, he also bought slaves and hired mercenaries for his own purposes, among whom there were many prisoners of war (58CJ!.W1t'cx.~). Whilst the foundations of the temple were being dug, Phalarisdeclared that thieves had stolen the. wood and other supplies ready for the building, and asked the people for permission to be allowed to surround the Acropolis with a wall. When the wall was built and the Acropolis was ready to be used as a fortress, he freed his slaves and armed them and the mercenaries with axes. On the feast of the Thesmophoria, in honour of Demeter, he and his followers attacked the worshippers and, after a bloodbath, he became the undisputed master of Akragas. Under his rule Agrigentum seems tohave attained considerable external prosperity. Hi s influence reached to the northern coast of the island where the people of Himera elected him general with absolute power. He conducted wars against the native Sicans, and succeeded in extending his territory eastwards to Econmus and Phalarium. He is said also to have conquered Leontini (modem Lentini). Suidas asserts that he ruled the whole of Sicily (1J~){'8f...tcx., Of...Tj' 't"upcx.VVTj<JC>:,). Phalaris was tyrant of Akragas for sixteen years - from 570 to 554 B.C.6 The stoty is told that once he saw a single hawk chasing a flight of doves: He turned to his companions and told them of the cowardice of the many who allowed themselves to fly before one whom, if only they had courage enough they might overcome.' He was at last overthrown apparently by a combination of the noble families, headed by the rich and distinguished Telemachus the ancestor of Theron, another tyrant of Akragas, and was burned along with his mother and friends in the brazen' bull. According to another story he was thrown into the sea. A decree WaS carried that no one was thereafter allowed to wear a blue dress, as blue had been the tyrant's livery. 5 Arist. Pol. 5.8; 1310, G28; Polyaen, V.1,1. 6 For a discussion of this date Cf. Holm, Geschischte Siciliens im Altertum, Leipzig, 1870, Vol. 1, p.149f; Freeman, op. dt. p.64; Pauly-Wissowa's article on Phalaris. 'Died. Sic. IX, 30, 1. 222 J. BUSUTTIL In the history of Sicily his importance lies in the fact that he was the first tyrant who, by extending his influence over a large part of the island, deterred the Phoenicians from taking hold of the whole island.8 In the history of Agrigentum, he was responsible for the sudden power and glory of the city.9 Finally the growth of a tyranny so soon after the foundation of a city is remarkableY Ancient writers, however, saw in Phalaris a prototype of the ferocious and beastly tyrant. Pindar (522-443) speaks in terms which already prove that his reputation as a barbarous tyrant was then already fully estab­ lished, and all subsequent writers allude to him in terms of similar import.ll Cicero· says of him: 'crudelissimus omnium tyrannorum' and in another passage, taken from Heraclides Ponticus, Cicero writes how Phalaris's mother dreamt that her son had dedicated some images of the gods in his house among them a statue of Hermes holding a patera in his hand. Out of this patera the gods were pouring out blood on the earth; the blood was bubbling up and filling the whole house, 'Quod matris somnium', Concludes Cicero, 'inmanis filii crudelitas comprobavit>12 Phalaris is said to have thrown men into boiling cauldrons and vessels filled with fire, and that he had the habit of eating sucklings. But it was mostly on account of the brazen bull that his name became a household name for cruelty. Without the bull, as Freeman avers, Phalaris would be no more than a hundred obscure tyrants in other Greek cities.13 This is the account Polybius gives of the bull (XII, 25): There was a brazen bull which Phalaris made in Agrigentum, and in it he shut up his victims; afterwards, having lighted a fire beneath it, he used to take such terrible revenge on his subjects that, as the brass grew red and the men inside perished roasted and scorched, when they screamed in the extremity of their agony, the sound, when it reached the ears of those present resem­ bled, owing to the way the thing was constructed, the roaring of the bull. Diodorus Siculus gives a shorter account of the same story: 'The Cartha­ ginians', he writes, 'occupied the hill Ecnomus, which people say had been a garrison (il?povp !'ov) of Phalaris; in this place it is said the tyrant had set up a brazen bull which has become famous and which served as a punishment for those people that were tortured inside it, by having a fire applied beneath the monster. For this reason the place as well is called 8 Cf. Bayet, Sidle Grecque, Paris, 1930, p.13. 9 Cf. A. Schenk Graf v Stauffenberg, TrinaR.ria, Oldenburg, 1963. lOCf. Freeman, op. cit. p.66. llpyth.1,85. 12Verr. 4,33; De Div. 1,23. 13 Op. dt. p.64f. THE LETTERS OF PHALARIS TO THE MALTESE 223 Ecnomus after the outrage perpetrated against those unfortunate ones'. 14 The inventor (nA.CXO'1:Tj~ of this monster was a certain Perilaus of Athens, who is said to have been the first 'to groan inside the instrument of his creation' .15 According to Diodorus Siculus, when Akragas was sacked by the Carthaginians, Himilcar robbed T& tepa and took the plunder together with the bull of Phalaris to Carthage, from where it was taken away by Scipio and given back to the Agrigentines after the Third Punic War.16 It is difficult, in view of the evidence at our disposal, to accept Pareti' s sweeping judgement that le notizie stesse sulfamoso strumento di tortura in forma di toro cavo di bronzo, sono del tutto inaccettabili17 Pindar is the first Greek who mentions the brazen bull in connection with Phalaris. Pindar was born about 522 B.C. that is, thirty-two years after the down­ fall of Phalaris, and hence he could have heard the story about the bull from eye-witnesses. Furthermore, if it is true, as Polybius and Diodorus Siculus allege, that the bull was removed from the city of Agrigentum in 406, when th.e Carthaginians invaded. the city, then ·Pindar could have seen the monster w.ith his own eyes.18 Bayet in his Sicile Grecque seems to suggest that the brazen bull was nothing else but the Phoenician Moloch which- Phalaris in·troduced in the city of Akragas.
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